ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607190062
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER STAFF WRITER
Buoyed by a contract revote that stopped layoff notices at Rubatex Corp.'s Bedford plant earlier this month, incumbent United Steel Workers Local 240 President Price Parker Jr. won re-election Thursday night with 60 percent of the vote.
Union workers at Rubatex and Bondtex Inc. in Bedford and Groendyk Manufacturing Co. Inc. in Buchanan chose the three-term incumbent by 262-174 over former union vice president Charles Mallory Jr.
Incumbent Vice President Rucker Witcher beat challenger J.R. Wilson by a similar margin, winning by 278-150. Parker, Mallory, Witcher and Wilson all work for Rubatex.
"The company's plans worked real good," Mallory said after hearing the results Thursday night. "This wasn't a win for Parker. It was a win for the company."
Parker could not be reached for comment, but Witcher said, "It's all over and done with now. ... The main thing we was after was saving jobs, but I really don't have no comment."
Thursday's vote was a special election ordered by the International Executive Board of the United Steel Workers of America because of polling irregularities in the regularly scheduled election last October, in which Parker beat Mallory by three votes.
Union election officials testified at a commission hearing that they didn't count or see all the ballots in that election. Instead, they took some results by telephone, which is against union election rules.
Another problem was a missing sign-in sheet that could have validated the ballots cast.
Thursday's election was the third time , Mallory, who was then the union vice president, lost to Parker by 59 votes.
Most recently, the two took opposite sides on a contract dispute with Rubatex. The company had threatened to lay off 287 workers at its Bedford plant if the union didn't accept changes to its labor contract such as mandatory overtime.
At first, the union narrowly rejected the changes, but when layoff notices went up at the plant, Parker asked for a revote. The second time, the workers accepted the contract revisions. Rubatex took down the layoff notices, but company officials wouldn't rule out future layoffs.
At the time, Parker said he wasn't happy with all the company's contract changes, but he was glad the union had voted to save jobs.
Supporters of Mallory said Thursday that they think Parker was too willing to make concessions to the company without a guarantee of job safety.
"Price, he's in there with the company, he's helping the company," said Thomas Moon, an employee who's been laid off since last month. "But Mallory, I think he'll look out for the workers."
"I don't want to say that I don't like to work with the company, but there's a limit to how much you can work with them," said John Sines, who's worked at Rubatex for 27 years. "You can't just give the company everything they want and get nothing in return."
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